Where are all my No-mates?

[HamletsSister]

In despair. Absolutely in despair. Do we have to go through this again? And with such a long lead up to the referendum? Really? What happened to the settled will of the Scottish people?

@statisticallychallenged Will you help me get through this again? (Was Roseformeplease then).

Nyx What a weaselly response.

nyx you should know better from all the previous debates - it's the union because of the economic case for me, you must be a little rattled to be posting such offensive stuff.

Excuse me. What's offensive? Oh, I said you were foaming - I take that back and apologise. Everything else I've said is the truth as I see it, and I'm a bit surprised that you're so offended.

fine - it was a nasty post and quite surprising from you, but we are all grown ups and I'm not sobbing into my coffee.

Lass - didn't mean to impress, thought it was funny (it is)

Can't see 'weaselly' in Nyx's post so you and I likely don't see humour in the same things either

Justnowords yes I see now. More seats than before and more seats than Tories or Labour is obviously a huge blow and a loss for SNP. How could I have been so daft?

Mundell 'there's only one winner' had me splurting my tea

Funny? No. A bit pathetic, much like your and Nyx's attempts to back pedal about your insults.

I didn't insult anyone Lass

Lass, what's weaselly? How do you feel about the crowing of the orange order in the papers? I feel sick about it myself. You will probably accuse me of virtue signaling or some such thing but I'm not. The OO is an organisation primarily concerned with the "superiority" of their own community. Expressed through their marches designed to intimidate and their "loyalty" to the ugliest forms of British nationalism built on sectarianism and racism. I live next to an orange hall. Have I no right to feel the way I do?

I'm really struggling to find the resuts for my Council broken down by first preference. (East Dunbartonshire). Im my ward we went from 1 SNP, 1 Lib Dem and 1 Independent to 1 Conservative, 1 Lib Dem and 1 Independent, so SNP lost a seat to Conservative. In my ward each party fielded 1 candidate each.

Fast forward to teh GE and it will be very interesting - the candidate with the best chance of ousting the odious John Nicholson is Jo Swinson of the Lib Dems, so it's a case of convincing those who voted Conservative or Labour as first preference to throw their support behind Jo for the greater good of getting rid of the SNP.

With SNP majority of just over 2000 it seems very do-able. I'm another one who would be cracking open the champagne and ceilidh dancing round the front room if Robertson and Salmond lost their seats.

I also think that Local Elections - particularly in wards with very small numbers of voters - are very, very different. While I would never vote SNP, I did vote for candidates I would not consider if they were standing under a party banner for a "bigger" election. This is because I vote for those who live in the area (.not all do in rural areas) or those who have done the job successfully for years. In my area, this meant 2 "independents" got in plus, for the first time, SNP. His is because one of e sitting independents has retired and is not really a gain from another political party, just a strong "Yes / SNP" area. The candidate, along with all the others, was untried.

What was sad is that we had NO election information at all from any other than a good friend who was standing for LibDems. Not sure if he put leaflets around everywhere but we got one.

Not sure how campaigning works but someone ought to print a few leaflets - they might make a difference. All the parties came out of it looking lazy and poorly resourced. Nothing much online either - just one of the independent incumbents continuing to post about local issues.

Nyx No I would not accuse you of virtue signalling. Your faux , wide-eyed innocent concern whereby you disingenuously try to link over 50% of the electorate in Scotland as supporters of the most rabid element of the Orange Order is at best embarrassing and at worst malicious.

As for Calyx' funny "day job" meme perhaps she could point out to Sturgeon her day job is to run Scotland effectively. There has been precious little of that.

Calyx you are also trying to imply Unionists are supporters of the Orange Order.

You know what, yes voters really hate being equated with anti English racism. You argue that's a tiny proportion of yes voters, most want independence for other reasons, bla bla bla

Yeah, well, same applies to the orange order. I was out campaigning pre indyref in edinburgh. There was an orange march happening the same day. The entire no campaign stall packed up and left because there was not a single person there who approved or wanted to be viewed as supporting them

The snp got the most seats and from that perspective it is a victory. But the fact that they didn't sweep the board the way they expected to and didn't gain outright control of so single council is also quite telling in terms of the overall level of support. There's more to the council elections than independence bit there are also a lot of people who don't vote snp under any circumstances because every vote is twisted after the fact to be about independence.

Personally I don't want every election to be dominated by it. We've got plenty of other issues to think about. I think both sides - in terms of politicians - are letting us down.

It's a cost thing too Hamlet - there are limits to the amount of money each party is allowed to spend, and the money has to be either raised through membership subscriptions or fundraising by the candidate themselves. Parties are going to concentrate spend in the areas they think will make a difference. If I were a Labour strategist, I wouldn't be spending on billboard advertising or leaflet drops in Kensington and Chelsea, for example.

For the local elections we had loads from teh Lib Dems but that might be because the GE is so close and we're a marginal seat. One from Labour, one from the Conservatives, one SNP and nothing from the Greens. The Indy councillor sends out frequent newsletters in full colour, no idea who is paying for them.

And I've never been doorstepped. Ever. Quite disappointing really.

Look, we can all count. We know that SNP got most seats. The reason it isn't a victory for the SNP is that it looks at the moment that their vote share has gone down/stayed stagnant compared to other recent elections/referenda and possibly also compared to 2012 council elections. I don't have the figures for that yet so I am prepared to stand corrected.

The SNP have had a massive increase in support since 2012 so they should have had a big increase in seats and vote share, they didn't, so in that sense it isn't a victory. That's what we are talking about. Plus, if you add together the anti independence vote it's far higher than the pro independence vote but there is the large amount of people who voted for Independent candidates that's needs to be factored in.

I'm not anti independence per se though I am anti SNP. Maybe some time independence will be the right thing for us. At the moment though it isn't the best thing for the people of Scotland especially while the SNP are in charge of Holyrood.

Statistically- I'm happy to hear about the ' no' stall packing up and heading off so as not to be associated with the OO. Makes me feel a bit better, thanks. And you're right, I hate being told I'm rabidly anti-English when that couldn't be further from the truth. So I'll calm down now and stop posting about the knuckle dragging element!

You should not have started it in the first place, but it's by far from the first time Yes supporters have used this tactic. It adds little to your credibility as far as I'm concerned.

Lass, why am I not allowed to comment or have an opinion on this? 'Bore off' yourself. I know that no yes supporter has any credibility in your eyes, no matter what.

I think its probably reasonable to say that both of the recent referendum campaigns - indyref and brexit - have had rampant twats on both sides. But in each case there's been approximately half on each side, and reducing those groups down to silly stereotypes helps nobody.

I don't think we can reasonably believe that half of Scots are anti English shortbread loving, kilt wearing teuchters, or that the other half are raging unionist rich old bastards who don't care about the poor. The same applies to brexit really, and to the upcoming election. In reality the majority of people on all sides are fairly moderate imo.

Moderate majority, but not in this thread! I came in as a no voter, saw the vitriol and backed out. Not my tribe!

When it comes to sectarianism the SNP cannot claim the moral high ground given their links to the IRA.

Funny isn't it that the Nat press aren't proclaiming the SNPs great victory but instead are attacking labour and Tory councillors. Wonder why that is?

Blowaway I think you'll find that the people who want to discuss this online feel quite strongly one way or the other.